With the addition of two more teams to the SEC this year, the SEC baseball tournament has a new format and is one that couldn’t be more convoluted if it tried.
Only 12 teams could even be in the tournament with the bottom two teams in the league having their season end last week. Georgia and Tennessee packed it in which left all seven teams in the SEC West still in the mix.
This year’s tournament started out as a single elimination tournament, then went to a double elimination format in the middle of the competition before it ended in a single elimination format, winner take all.
The bottom eight teams played May 22 with the loser going home early. In Arkansas’ bracket, Mississippi ended Kentucky’s season 4-1 while Alabama eliminated Auburn 6-3. In the other bracket, Texas A&M sent Florida home uncharacteristically early by a 6-3 score with new league member Missouri being shown the door by Mississippi State 2-1. This was Missouri’s first year in the SEC and they came into the league after winning the Big 12 championship a year ago.
In the next round, which began double elimination play, A&M shut out the nation’s No. 1-ranked team in Vanderbilt by a 5-0 score while Mississippi State ended perennial power South Carolinas’ tournament 5-3.
Louisiana State shut out Alabama 3-0 with Arkansas winning their game over Mississippi 2-1. The Arkansas/Mississippi game was a weird affair when the Razorbacks had the bases loaded in the ninth inning with two-out, tied at 1-all.
A batted ball was headed to right field which would have plated two runs and won the game except the ball hit the Razorback runner headed to second. The hitter got credit for the hit but the runner was called out, forcing the game into extra innings. Again the bases were loaded in the 10th inning but a pitch to a Hog batter hit the front lip of the plate and bounced high into the air, rolling to the backstop allowing the runner from third to score easily, game over.
On the May 23 round, Mississippi State bested A&M 6-4 with Vanderbilt beating South Carolina 4-3 to eliminate the Gamecocks. Mississippi was sent home after losing 7-5 to Alabama. The Arkansas game with LSU was a thriller with the Hogs coming out on top of the nations’ No.
2-ranked team 4-1.
Arkansas’ pitcher Ryan Stanek did not allow an earned run although an error gave LSU a run to keep it tied until the eighth. When the Tigers’ ace Nola left after seven innings, Arkansas scored once in the eighth and twice in the ninth to win the game 4-1.
On Friday, May 24, LSU came back in the last inning and beat Alabama with the Tigers advancing to the semifinals to play Arkansas on May 25. Meanwhile that Friday, Vanderbilt beat A&M and then went on to beat Mississippi State the next day. LSU and Vanderbilt both won Saturday, and even though the loss by the Razorbacks and Bulldogs made all teams even at a loss each, LSU and Vanderbilt then advanced to the final game on Sunday which LSU won.
Because Arkansas lost Saturday, they were deprived of a regional hosting position in the NCAA tournament even though they had a better tournament record than did Vanderbilt.
This also in spite of the fact that Arkansas went 5-1 against Mississippi Sate and South Carolina who were both awarded regional host status.
Going back to last week’s competition, if someone wonders “Why the convoluted tournament arrangement?”
The answer is simple, “Money.”
Being able to have a single elimination in the last two rounds allowed the SEC to get a really lucrative broadcasting package from ESPN. Networks hate double elimination tournaments because a champion may or may not be crowned in the first game of the last day. If a second game is forced, that would take up broadcast space already assigned to something else.
The real “boss” of NCAA athletics is the ESPN hierarchy. Letting ineligible Ohio State football players compete against Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl a few years was about the money.
While the venerable collegiate sports overseer cracks down mightily on a player or athlete who might profit in some tiny way from sports participation, the NCAA knows no bounds in pursuit of as much money as it can possibly wring out of college athletics.
Here’s hoping someday that collegiate athletics will be directed by someone or something that puts the athletes first.
◊◊◊
Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 8 on 06/05/2013